Legitimate Communication - Watch out for phishing

We have recently become aware of a phishing attempt allegedly from TransferWise Deposit Protection. Please do not answer these emails or click on any links that they may include. There is no such company as TransferWise Deposit Protection and you should not transfer any money to the bank accounts indicated. These emails are typically sent indicating that we offer a deposit protection scheme. They will outline a bank account that you should transfer your money to. This is not a TransferWise account. You can find details here of all TransferWise bank accounts. 

Phishing is a very simple form of online fraud where scammers seek to convince you to hand over your personal details by posing as a legitimate and trusted companies, usually by email.

This is all too easy in our current age, where we use an abundance of online services, so we want to help make you a little more aware of what to look out for when you think you may have been contacted by a scammer.

The process:

• You’ll receive an email from a trusted online business. This could be your bank, TransferWise, PayPal, AirBnB, Amazon, etc.
• It will bear similarities to a normal email from this company — logos, colour scheme, typeface
• The email will claim something has happened to your account, and ask you to follow a link to log in and fix the problem (this could be account suspension, account deactivation, account being compromised, needing details to send a refund or prize of some sort)
• Once you follow the link, you’ll be led to a page which, again, looks a lot like a page that might belong to that business — and be asked to enter your login details
• Once you enter your details, these will then be used by the scammers to potentially steal your credit card details, use the account on the service you gave them details for, or commit identity theft

There are some simple things you can look out for if you receive an email from TransferWise which you think might be fraudulent:

• TransferWise always addresses you by the first name you entered on our website
• If we ask you to follow a link in an email, you will always be directed to a site which starts with https://www.transferwise.com (always double check the spelling, scammers will sometimes try and use transfrwise.com, or something similar).

If you’re concerned you may have received a phishing email from someone purporting to be us, please contact us, and we can assist you.

We also have our own internal procedures to combat phishing emails sent directly to us, in any attempt to gain customer details.